Hello all,

I have GSS 2.5, which after an almost 700 MB LiveUpdate (LU5) I recently updated to 2.5.1 (11.5.1.2266). Does anyone know where the installer for 2.5.1 got downloaded, so that I can save it and not have to re-download in the future?

I used to have many different DOS-based recovery floppies/CDs, but moving with the times, I want to create multi-boot DVDs now, using which I can boot into DOS, Linux as well as BartPE/WinPE. Now I'm not here to ask how to do this, since I already have the discs set up and tested. What I want to know is, which standalone/portable executables can I copy from the Program Files\Symantec\Ghost directory that will work from the DVD?

I want to only create and restore drive/partition images from/to internal and external drives. No networking support is needed, but VMDK/V2i/Pqi file support is required. Keeping this in mind, here's the list of files I have:

1. These are the ones I don't think I need given my requirements. (Unless someone thinks otherwise?)

    * wattcp.cfg - Network (IP/Netmask/Gateway) details for GhostCasting
    * GhoShExt.dll - Shell extension
    * GhConfig.exe - Network config. details retrieval utility
    * GhConfig32.exe
    * GhConfig64.exe
    * ghDplyAw32.exe - Symantec Deploy Anywhere
    * Ghost Boot Wizard.exe
    * GhostSrv.exe - GhostCast server
    * ghstwalk.exe - SID changer
    * GhWalk32.exe
    * joinxe.exe - Joins split files?
    * ngctw32.exe - Ghost client agent
    * vdisk.exe - Floppy image creation tool
    * vpartition.exe - Virtual Partition dynamic link library
    * VPartition.pdb - Apparently a C++ Program DataBase file to help in debugging? (And if so, why the heck is this even included in the distribution?)

2. These are files I have no idea about. What do these do, and do I need them?

    * gdisk - No extension. Required for gdisk.exe?
    * ghconfig - No extension. Required for ghconfig.exe?
    * ghost - No extension. Required for ghost.exe?
    * ghregedit - No extension. Required for ghregedit.exe?
    * omnifs - No extension. Required for omnifs.exe?
    * GhostImageFile.dll - Ghost image file basic info. retrieval DLL. Required for Ghost Explorer?
    * imgedit.dll - 3Com boot image file editor
    * Int86_32.dll - Ghost disk access service
    * V2iDiskLib.dll - Symantec/VMware interop. module
    * VPartition.dll - Virtual Partition dynamic link library
    * win32ui.dll - Ghost common UI library
    * SMEUTIL.SYS - Kernel mode utility/driver
    * ghost.env - Contains Keynum, License, Keycode etc. Required for Ghost to be registered and work properly?

3. These are the ones I have identified to be definitely copied over:

    * gdisk.exe - Fixed disk partitioning utility
    * gdisk32.exe
    * Gdisk64.exe
    * ghost.exe - Duh!
    * ghost32.exe
    * Ghost64.exe
    * Ghostexp.exe - Ghost Explorer. Not completely portable as it creates a Registry key, but seems to work fine.
    * GhRegEdt.exe - Offline registry editor
    * GhRegEdit32.exe
    * GhRegEdit64.exe
    * omnifs.exe - Multiple filesystem access utility
    * omnifs32.exe
    * OmniFs64.exe

So, can some expert Ghost users help me out here with this file list? What I basically want to know is, which files from section #1, and especially from section #2, are required for proper functioning of the programs in section #3? Thanks!

P.S. I hate bloat and have lots of other things I need to include on the discs, so kindly don't tell me to just copy all the files blindly and be done with it. I didn't post in such detail here and elsewhere to read such an answer.

NightOwl wrote on Jan 6^th, 2011 at 11:01pm:

First of all, thank you very much for your reply. You're correct, time is not an issue here, space is! Or else we can simply treat it as a sort of interesting challenge to see if we can figure out what each file really does.

NightOwl wrote on Jan 6^th, 2011 at 11:01pm:

This was actually the first thing that occurred to me and I did try it out. I chose the WinPE option in Boot Wizard and created the ISO. Opening up the ISO however, I only found the Ghost executables in it. For some reason none of the others such as Explorer, gdisk, omnifs etc. were included. There was an option at the end of the wizard to add files on your own, but that made no sense because then the choice was up to me. So though this sounded like it would do the trick, unfortunately I didn't see any way to get the wizard itself to add those other programs to the boot media.

NightOwl wrote on Jan 6^th, 2011 at 11:01pm:

True, but I want full control and have many interesting scenarios in mind. Started messing with Grub etc. to create custom multi-boot loaders and so on. All very interesting stuff really, and I'd rather have complete control over the process and know exactly what I'm putting in, and what each and every bit does.

NightOwl wrote on Jan 6^th, 2011 at 11:01pm:

Oh yes, I know which EXEs are for Windows and which for DOS. If need be, I can easily hex edit a file to look at its signature/header and figure out what type of EXE it is - 16, 32 or 64-bit etc. So that part's not an issue at all. It's the inter-dependency that has me puzzled, since I don't want to copy an EXE, only to find out later while using it in a recovery situation that it suddenly needs a DLL or something for a particular feature to work. That's why I commented on a file such as GhostImageFile.dll, whose properties tab states that it is a Ghost image file basic info. retrieval DLL. So... does that mean Ghost Explorer possibly uses it to do something to retrieve image properties? Or maybe one of the command-line programs uses it?

NightOwl wrote on Jan 6^th, 2011 at 11:01pm:

It creates the entire "Symantec\Symantec Ghost\Explorer\Ghost Explorer\Settings" hierarchy under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software. I have tested this on a machine with no trace of GSS installed, and simply running Ghostexp.exe creates all those keys, sub-keys and values.

I guess this is one of the reasons why Explorer is not included by default in the boot media, since it's not meant to be a portable program (although it seems to work fine from what I've tested so far).

I wish there was some way I could get in touch with a developer who actually knew what each file does and the inter-dependencies between them. That way I could identify for sure that if a particular program EXE is to be copied somewhere, only such-and-such files need be copied along with it and no more to make it work.

Maybe it's too much to ask, but hopefully someone out there who has this knowledge can read this message and provide some useful insights.

Thanks for the response Tator. So what you mean is, newer versions of Ghost will not work at all in BartPE? In any case, if that's true, I can always use the officially supported WinPE. That still doesn't answer my specific query though. I think I may be forced to copy each executable by itself to a (virtual) machine untouched by Ghost, then run through as many features as possible to see if any error pops up due to missing files. A longer, more painful process for sure, but unless someone can help, I don't see any other way out to accomplish what I want. I wish I knew at least what those "no extension" files are, since they share names with the executables themselves.

NightOwl wrote on Jan 10^th, 2011 at 11:20am:

I did, before I found this forum. No luck so far.

NightOwl wrote on Jan 10^th, 2011 at 11:20am:

Well so far the 16-bit versions of the command-line utils I'm interested in, i.e. gdisk, ghost, ghregedit and omnifs, seem to be pretty much stand-alone with no external dependencies. Haven't tested all their features though, so can't arrive at a definite conclusion till I do. Those extension-less files seem to be of no use, but that sounds unlikely so maybe the 32 or 64-bit versions use them.